Rapid Recovery 6.1.3 - User Guide

Deploying to machines manually

Use the following procedure to deploy the Rapid Recovery Agent to multiple machines on any type of host other than the local Core, Active Directory, vCenter/ESXi, or Hyper-V.

CAUTION: If AppAssure Agent was previously installed on a Linux machine, then before installing Rapid Recovery Agent, remove the AppAssure Agent from the machine using a shell script.

For information on removing the Agent from a Linux machine, see the topic "Uninstalling the AppAssure Agent software from a Linux machine." To successfully deploy the Agent software to Linux machines, see the prerequisites in the topic "About installing the Agent software on Linux machines." These topics are found in the Rapid Recovery Installation and Upgrade Guide.

If Rapid Recovery detects any concerns during automatic verification, the wizard progresses to a Warnings page, where you can clear machines from selection and manually verify the selected machines. If the machines you added pass the automatic verification, they appear on the Deploy Agent to Machines pane.

The Rapid Recovery Agent software deploys to the specified machines. The machines are not yet protected. Protection begins after you complete Protecting multiple machines manually.

Verifying the deployment to multiple machines

Once you have deployed the Rapid Recovery Agent software to two or more machines simultaneously, you can verify the success by viewing each machine listed under the Protected Machines menu.

You can also view information regarding the bulk deploy process from the Events page. Complete the steps in this procedure to verify the deployment.

1.	Navigate to the Rapid Recovery Core Console, click (Events), and then click Alerts.

The Summary page for the selected machine appears, showing pertinent information including:

Modifying deploy settings

Complete the steps in this procedure to modify deploy settings.

1.	From the Rapid Recovery Core Console, click (Settings).

3.	Modify any of the following options by clicking the setting you want to change to make it editable as a text box or drop-down list, and then click to save the setting.

Understanding protection schedules

A protection schedule defines when backups are transferred from protected agent machines to the Rapid Recovery Core.

The first backup transfer saved to the Core is called a base image snapshot. All data on all specified volumes (including the operating system, applications, and settings), are saved to the Core, which can take a significant amount of time depending on the amount of data being transferred. Thereafter, incremental snapshots (smaller backups, consisting only of data changed on the protected machine since the last backup) are saved to the Core regularly, based on the interval defined (for example, every 60 minutes). This backup contains less data than a base image, and therefore takes a shorter amount of time to transfer.

Protection schedules are initially defined using the Protect Machine Wizard or the Protect Multiple Machines Wizard. Using a wizard, you can customize protection schedules (choosing either periods or a daily protection time) to accommodate your business needs. You can then modify the existing schedule or create a new schedule at any time in the Protection Schedule dialog box from the summary page of a specific protected machine.

Rapid Recovery provides a default protection schedule, which includes a single period spanning all days of the week, with a single time period defined (from 12:00 AM to 11:59 PM). The default interval (the time period between snapshots) is 60 minutes. When you first enable protection, you also activate the schedule. Thus, using the default settings, regardless of the current time of day, the first backup will occur every hour, on the hour (12:00 AM, 1:00 AM, 2:00 AM, and so on).

Selecting periods lets you view the default protection schedule and make adjustments accordingly. Selecting a daily protection time causes Rapid Recovery Core to back up the designated protected machines once daily at a time you specify.

You can customize the schedule to define peak and off-peak times using the weekday and weekend periods available. For example, if your protected machines are mostly in use on weekdays, you could decrease the interval for the weekday period to 20 minutes, resulting in three snapshots every hour. Or you can increase the interval for the weekend period from 60 minutes to 180 minutes, resulting in snapshots once every three hours when traffic is low.

Alternatively, you can change the default schedule to define peak and off-peak times daily. To do this, change the default start and end time to a smaller range of time (for example, 12:00 AM to 4:59 PM), and set an appropriate interval (for example, 20 minutes). This represents frequent backups during peak periods. You can then add an additional weekday time range for the remaining span of time (5:00 pm to 11:59 pm) and set an appropriate (presumably larger) interval (for example, 180 minutes). These settings define an off-peak period that includes 5:00 PM to midnight every day. This customization results in snapshots every three hours from 5:00 PM through 11:59 PM, and snapshots every 20 minutes from 12:00 AM until 4:59 PM.

When you modify or create a protection schedule using the Protection Schedule dialog box, Rapid Recovery gives you the option to save that schedule as a reusable template that you can then apply to other protected machines.

Other options in the protection wizards include setting a daily protection time. This results in a single backup daily at the period defined (the default setting is 12:00 PM).

When protecting one or multiple machines using a wizard, you can initially pause protection, which defines the protection schedule without protecting the machines. When you are ready to begin protecting your machines based on the established protection schedule, you must explicitly resume protection. For more information on resuming protection, see Pausing and resuming protection. Optionally, if you want to protect a machine immediately, you can force a snapshot. For more information, see Forcing a snapshot.